Chaos

So, just some orientation: my semester is over. My grades are in. It's less than three weeks to the workshop based on the joint book project and I am going apeshit. As are my coauthors.

Also, Miss T. is well past 8 months. We had our first parent-teacher conference yesterday and, well, I'm kind of appalled that she got her first report card of sorts. Verdict: normal on all aspects except gross motor. More to follow, I suspect; much to process for mama and dada.

My hallway is getting renovated this summer. As I try desperately to keep up with the e-mail from Dr. Wow—every hour, he's got a newly superlative subject line: "What is urgent!" then "Must work on!" then "TODAY!!!"—my colleagues are happily packing and kibbitzing. Stealing books out of each other's piles of discards when no one's looking.

I made a little chart on the last page of my to-do notebook. BOXES PACKED, SHELVES CLEARED, INBOX SIZE. Friday I filled out the first row: 2, 4, 1257. Yes, more shelves cleared than boxes packed—I discarded with abandon on Friday.

Then I lost the notebook. This morning the inbox is up to 1320.

Today Cary Tennis linked to Children of Hoarders. I'm not that bad. Beaker's not that bad. Even his mother isn't that bad (although she's closer).

But I wonder: will there be support groups for children of renovators who can't ever finish the job? (At least, for the survivors, the ones who didn't find the bleach in the cabinet that never had its historically-authentic lock installed.)